


angels forget to pray for us

by azurill



Series: long is the road that leads me home [1]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, F/F, dina be my wife i'll do better than ellie, just a lot of sadness guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:01:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25189888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurill/pseuds/azurill
Summary: Ellie leaves. Dina doesn't follow.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Series: long is the road that leads me home [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824790
Comments: 15
Kudos: 120





	angels forget to pray for us

_Consciousness returns to her gradually — with the feeling of her hand held tight by someone, a groan at the sliver of artificial light coming through a crack in the door, a deeply uncomfortable ache spreading in her body the more aware she becomes. When she manages to keep her eyes from quickly closing again, she's greeted with the sight of Ellie sleeping right beside her, frowning and a little restless._

_They're still in the dressing room they claimed as their own little space inside the theater. Nothing looks out of place._

_Dina tries and fails miserably to sit up, ending up on her back again when the fatigue becomes too much. The commotion caused by her moving around is enough for Ellie to stir awake and instantly get on her feet when it dawns on her that her girlfriend isn't unconscious anymore._

_"Dina," Ellie sighs her name, voice laced with sleep. She settles for finding Dina's hand again — squeezing it — instead of saying something. There are purple bruises scattered across her face and her eyes are heavy with exhaustion. Dina can vividly picture the slightest breeze knocking her down to the floor._

_The words of comfort are in the tip of her tongue, but an attempt to get them across makes her cough at the strain talking causes her parched throat._

_Ellie reaches for the water canteen at arm's reach, placed between sets of expired makeup and jewelry boxes. She gently guides Dina into a sitting position before pushing the canteen into her hands. Dina groans trying to get it close enough to her mouth, her shoulder screaming in pain the entire time._

_"Here," Ellie holds it up to her mouth. If it was any other situation, Dina would be embarrassed to accept help for such a menial task. At that moment she can't bring herself ito care, wrapping her fingers on Ellie's wrist and taking a few needed sips from the canteen. With Ellie's help, Dina lies on her back again when she's done. They sit in silence. The entire place eerily still._

_Has it been a day? A week? Dina gingerly touches the bandage close to her shoulder with her fingertips, trying to recollect her thoughts. She remembers little, but just enough of what happened before everything went dark. Her mouth opens, then closes. There's no easy way to ask if Tommy and Jesse made it._

_Ellie stiffens noticeably, absorbing her energy like a sponge. She's back to lying down in the makeshift bed they've been sharing, facing the ceiling._

_"Tommy..." she starts, and Dina turns her head to look at her. "Tommy's resting. His leg is fucked but he's... fine. Jesse..."_

_Her silence is enough of an answer and Dina lets out a choked sob, followed by tears. He was her best friend alongside Ellie. He stayed with her all night and she never had enough courage to tell him about—_

_Another sob._

_Ellie's arms wrap around her as much as they can in the position they're in, and Dina cries into the crook of her neck until she's utterly spent._

_"I wanna go home, Ellie," she says, shaky._

_A tear falls on Dina's collar. It's not hers. "Me too," mumbles Ellie, so quiet she can barely hear it._

-

Even without Ellie around, the plants never go unwatered, the pile of laundry never goes unwashed and the sheep never sleep outside. It's rare that anyone ever gets close enough to the farmhouse — I bet I could do it, Dina had said about traps back when they were in Seattle — but she shoots down two travelers before they can prove to be any trouble.

Her body aches by the end of the day and she can't sleep at night. Besides the constant nightmares she has, JJ cries more often than not with Ellie gone. In particularly bad nights like these, Ellie would play him guitar or read her comics to him or blow raspberries on his tummy until he drifted off. These little things left with her.

"You miss Mama too?" She bounces him on her arms, looking out the window outside the bedroom, hoping to see her silhouette. 

Dina dwells on the what ifs. Maybe she should've gone with her — surely Jesse's parents wouldn't mind if JJ stayed with them. They'd be worried about her for sure, but never get into her way. Maybe if Dina had been smarter, said something a little differently, she would still have left, but the last memory Ellie would have of her wouldn't be of her bringing up Joel's death and grasping at straws to get her to stay.

Minutes go by. His cries don't cease and desperation catches to her. The sight of Ellie's side of the bed — empty, so damn cold — starts to blur. She wishes she could say it's because he won't stop crying and she is barely getting enough sleep as it is, but deep down she knows that's not the reason why her eyes sting.

Dina doesn't realize she's crying too until she feels his hands on her face, curiously poking the tears. She brings him back to bed and wakes up in the morning unaware that she ever slept, with JJ tugging on her shirt and whining for breakfast. 

Later that morning, when she's sitting on the porch in a rare moment of rest, it dawns on her that a week went by. 

Ellie did not come home. 

-

_The events of these three days in Seattle divided her life into two compartiments: before Seattle and after Seattle. Still, Dina doesn't feel like someone who can raise a child and not make a shitty job out of it. She doesn't feel like the girl that kissed Ellie in that party night either._

_This contradiction feels all too real when they come back from Jackson's market with dinousaur onesies and noisy toys in every color of the rainbow. Their little trip to the market was filled with jokes and their usual banter, but responsibility weighs down on Dina's shoulders as soon as they open the door to Ellie's home._

_At first Dina wasn't sure she wanted to keep it, and then she wasn't sure if she raised to raise it. Maybe that last one would be a task better suited for Jesse's parents, and she could just watch from afar and make sure she doesn't ruin everything. And then she thought of the utter helplessness she felt when the shock of Jesse's death passed and she had to deal with the fact her baby might have joined him — how happy she was when she woke up one morning still fatigued and nauseated._

_She doesn't want to give him up, but she doesn't know how to do this._

_She's terrified._

_"Dee? Are you okay?" Ellie looked at her worriedly after spilling down the contents of her backpack on the previously empty space beside her table. "Dina?"_

_Dina opens her mouth to talk, but all she manages is a sound close to a whine. Their relationship started just a few weeks before she told Ellie the news, though it feels like so much more time had passed since they got together. They're so, so young for this. No matter how many times Ellie assured her otherwise, sometimes Dina can't help but feel like she's dragging her into a life she never wanted for herself._

_"Hey," Ellie calls softly, sitting next to her and enveloping her shoulders in an one-armed embrace."Babe. What's wrong?"_

_Her free hand settles on Dina's knee, thumb softly brushing the area. She's not mad that they're having this talk again after walking for hours under the hot sun, looking for items they'd need to raise the baby. Ellie was always bad with words. Her love makes itself known like this — with the way she stays with her silently, drying the tears with the sleeves of her shirt and letting Dina cry on her shoulders._

_"This is a little different than a pet, huh?" Dina jokes as she usually does when things turn to shit._

_"It's not that bad," Ellie smiles a little, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "Do you want me to stay?"_

_Her first instinct is to protest. She fights against it, so needy of comfort she is. "Yeah."_

_"Okay." Ellie stands up to unlace Dina's boots before helping her out of her jeans. They should really get some new clothes—Ellie is quickly running out of clean clothes to wear with the way Dina took to wearing hers._

_For a second Dina debates taking a shower to get rid of the sweat gathered on her forehead during their shopping, but her body feels heavy and all she wants to do is lie down and rest. Her girlfriend seems to notice that, taking her to the bed and settling behind her._

_Ellie's fingers massages her shoulders and her neck, prompting a few tired sighs from Dina — then she finally settles for putting her chin on top of her head, softly rubbing her belly._

_Soon Ellie will have to get the fuck up tell Maria to get someone else to walk the perimeter. But for now, Dina brings the hand that's resting on her belly up to her lips, and presses a kiss to her palm._

-

She leaves Ellie's things for last. It's still more painful than she thought it would be, to put her things away like that in neat little boxes. Dina does it anyway. She has to.

Sometimes all Ellie needed was to throw herself into creative work to feel a little better about life— a trait she retained through all the years she's known her— and Dina never intruded into her alone time or her space if she could help it. 

There are drawings Ellie made that she had never seen. An attempt at drawing a comic, a bird on the fence, wild berries gathered in a basket. An unfinished painting of her in a ponytail, petting a horse that looks very much like Shimmer. When Dina spots the bracelet she gave Ellie sitting atop the pile of astronomy books on the table, she feels a pang of pain so terrible she has to support herself on the table. 

She takes big, gulping breaths, trying to not think of Ellie out there on her own, and amidst searching for a peaceful memory to lean on, her mind brings her to the afternoons they'd spend in this very same room. She brings down the memory of Ellie guiding JJ through painting a summer sky, his tiny fingers sticky with paint. It hurts too much.

She takes an entire morning to be done with Ellie's tiny, tiny studio, and ends up spending more time in the farm than she had planned to. At noon, she folds a blanket cleanly, resting it atop their bed, along with a pillow a few bedsheets. She folds Ellie's clothes, freshly clean from the laundry. If she comes back — if she comes back at all and isn't dead in a ditch somewhere — and she wants to stay out of her life forever, there's enough for her to live there for some time. 

Dina deliberately places the disk she loves on top of her guitar. She's not sure what the gesture means. _If you see this come back to me? If you see this then you know we're done? Remember the day we danced in the kitchen? Remember what you lost? Are you gonna see this disk and come to Jackson or will you put it aside, pick up Joel's guitar and drown on your sadness forever?_

She takes one last look at the place she used to call home, the place that she dreamt of and gave her some of the happiest days or her life, and leaves it behind.

Dina arrives in Jackson's gates before the sunset, shrugs all the questions and the stares directed at her in the gates and drops off JJ on Robin's house with a promise that she'll tell her what this is all about later, as soon as she talks to Maria. She tells her that it's okay— informs her to come back home for dinner and pats JJ's back soothingly when he whines for his mother walking out the doorway.

Maria seems to have the same idea as Dina, meeting her halfway through the path to her house. They exchange no pleasantries. She should feel like less like a child in front of the older woman now, but she feels no different than the girl she was back in Joel's kitchen, petulant and embarrassed under Maria's stare. 

"I hope Tommy's happy," Dina whispers, chin quivering as she tries to not break down right there. 

-

_The birth is long._

_Terribly so._

_Dina was shot at, stabbed, had a ceiling give out underneath her, broke a few bones and bled out and went through every possible combination of unfortunate happenings. Yet nothing prepared her for the pain she'd go through in order to welcome a child into this world._

_Ellie looked as pale as a paper sheet — Dina will make sure to tease her about that — but through the excruciatingly long hours, she barely left Dina's side once, hand still and strong everytime she squeezed it with all the force she had. Dina throws a few choice curses between waves of pain. Forms no coherent words when the pain gets worse. It hits a breaking point where she's not sure she can do it anymore, certainly she's about to die—_

_A baby's cry fills the air._

_She leans her head back on the pillow, tears falling down her eyes and sweat dripping down her neck. She opens her eyes to the bundle of blankets on the midwife's arms. It's a boy, she says. Newborns are nothing but a mess of red and disgruntled whines, but Dina swears she sees more of his father on his features than she sees hers._

_Dina clumsily reaches for him, craddling hin close to her chest like she's done it a thousand times before. She looks up at Ellie, who's frozen in the spot, unknowing of what she should do. Eventually, Ellie reaches for him too, stretching her hand towards his little hand, the newborn instantly holding her thumb tight. For a second, she thinks Ellie might be crying._

_"Hey, kiddo," Ellie says, all choked up._

_Yeah, definitely crying._

-

People are relentless with the gossip. She pretends not to hear the rumors around her love life and the reason why Ellie left. All of them miss the mark by far. Some make her blood boil, and her lips bleed with the strength she puts into biting back an answer. For some reason, the looks of pity are worse than any malicious gossip.

Sometimes, Dina wants to leave. Then she asks herself— to _where_?

It's better that she stays.

For him.

She survived out there on her own after her sister died, stumbling upon Jackson by following rumors and relying a lot on luck. It's her home. She can survive a few months of uncomfortableness before everyone moves on to another interesting subject, if it means that her son won't grow up like her, scared to sleep and constantly going hungry.

Jesse's parents are nothing but welcoming and incredibly helpful. She stayed with them for a few days. Woke up to every morning to a hearty breakfast and friendly conversations in the porch. Dina didn't tell them much, and they didn't ask. She doesn't get back the house she used to live in, but there's a nice little one not too far from Robin's place that happened to be vacant. No matter how welcomed she feels in their home, she's in dire need of her own space. 

Dina doesn't keep much from the farmhouse. The pictures, of course, stay. She's still to hang up the paintings Ellie made of her and JJ, and there's one of Ellie's shirts in the drawer. She doesn't wear the bracelet anymore, but everytime she dreams of the thousand ways Ellie could die out there on her own, she takes it into her hands and prays.

It doesn't change anything, but the thought that it might work brings her comfort. 

(It's not enough. It has to be.)

Dina threw herself into work the first opportunity she had, and though she doesn't leave the gates, there's plenty enough inside it to keep her busy. It's during one of her shifts on the local workshop that she receives the news that Ellie's back.

"You need to come _now_ ," says Bonnie, her old patrol partner, anxiously gesturing from the doorframe and ignoring all her questions. "Hurry the fuck up."

When she sobers up from the immense relief washing over her at the news of Ellie being alive and being back, Dina swallows the bitterness that rises up in her chest — she needed Ellie too, but Ellie didn't care, did she? 

Before she knows it, she leaves her job of fixing up a radio unfinished in the table.

-

_Ellie excels as a parent._

_It's not that Dina thought she wouldn't fit the role. It's just that neither of them was ready to take such a role, and unlike her, Ellie didn't have any obligation to. She was never so wrong — Ellie adored JJ from the start and despite their mutual clumsiness in the beginning, she got the hang of it all very quick._

_Her nightmares become less frequent as time passes. Ellie told her about everything that happened before she came to Jackson in the most detached way, and even then it took her weeks to get to the events of Salt Lake. She shuts off when Joel's mentioned in any context. It's a miracle she agreed to JJ's name._

_Dina knows the past still haunts her. Made peace with the fact she'll probably never know to what extent. But Ellie's different around him. Lighter. It gives her hope._

_One day, Dina spots them on the rocking chair, Ellie softly reading jokes out her pun books to JJ, who seems to be fast asleep. There's a content, peaceful glow to her face._

_"I told you, your jokes suck."_

_Ellie looks at her, all boyish charm in her lopsided grin. "Guess so. You think he'll wake up if I move?"_

_"Only one way to find out."_

_It's rare that they get JJ to stay in the crib Ellie built — he always slept better when he was right between them in the bed — but it's easier to make it work when he's already out. When they're sure he isn't about to burst crying, Ellie hugs her from behind, brushing her hair out of her neck and kissing the exposed skin._

_"What are you doing?" Dina asks, strangely out of breath. Ellie chuckles in response and it makes her shiver from head to toe. "You're fucking insatiable, you know that?"_

-

"Can you come here and help already?" Mrs. Bethany, the head of the clinic, urges Dina to move from the frozen state she's in. "We've been at this long enough."

Ellie looks thinner, much thinner than she was a few months ago, if that's even possible. There's a soaked bandage on the left side of her stomach, and she's pretty sure there's a recent scar on the right. Even in her dire condition, it takes a strong person to hold her down. She's struggling against everyone that comes close enough to her, kicking her legs not unlike a wild animal. 

Amidst all the incoherent words, she hears her name. She takes a step forward, despite every bone in her body begging her to walk away like Ellie did to her months ago.

God, how Dina wishes she could hate her. 

Her skin feels clammy when Dina cups her cheek. "Hey," she whispers, forcing eye contact. "Ellie. It's me. It's me."

Ellie puts a hand on her forearm and her eyes flood with tears. She mouths her name. No sound comes out. Dina watches her eyes slowly close, the effort she puts into staying awake dwindling away.

When they usher her off the room, there's blood on her shirt and a prayer in the tip of her tongue.

**Author's Note:**

> this was initially part of a story i'm working on and then i went hey, this works better as a prequel and it would be fun if i switched the pov to dina for once. so here it is. there's some things i'm !assuming! about dina:
> 
> 1) i was expecting to see something about her family in the farm, maybe a letter or a recent picture? all we got was that picture of dina with her sister. dina looked pretty young so i'm assuming she's not around anymore and that the guy she stabbed trying to protect her mom actually succeeded.
> 
> 2) we don't know if jesse told her he knew about the pregnancy. when he dies (rip king i always liked you), she believes he had no idea about her condition until ellie tells her about the conversation they had.
> 
> 3) she knows about joel and ellie's journey to the fireflies.
> 
> just a heads up, my username used to be milqo. i changed it :-) hope you like this fic!!!! find me on twitter @elliedinas 💞


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